s pink-leaved; and if the
modern mind, incurious respecting the journeys of wise men, has already
confused, in its Bradshaw's Bible, the station of Bethlehem with that of
Bethel,[48] it is certainly time to take some order with the partly false,
partly useless, and partly forgotten literature of the Fields; and, before
we bow our children's memories to the burden of it, ensure that there shall
be matter worth carriage in the load.

4. And farther, in attempting such a change, we must be clear in our own
minds whether we wish our nomenclature to tell us something about the plant
itself, or only to tell us the place it holds in relation to other plants:
as, for instance, in the Herb-Robert, would it be well to {179} christen
it, shortly, 'Rob Roy,' because it is pre-eminently red, and so have done
with it;--or rather to dwell on its family connections, and call it
'Macgregoraceous'?

5. Before we can wisely decide this point, we must resolve whether our
botany is intended mainly to be useful to the vulgar, or satisfactory to
the scientific elite. For if we give names characterizing individuals, the
circle of plants which any country possesses may be easily made known to
the children who live in it: but if we give names founded on the connexion
between these and others at the Antipodes, the parish school-master will
certainly have double work; and it may be doubted greatly whether the
parish school-boy, at the end of the lecture, will have half as many ideas.

6. Nevertheless, when the features of any great order of plants are
constant, and, on the whole, represented with great clearness both in cold
and warm climates, it may be desirable to express this their citizenship of
the world in definite nomenclature. But my own method, so far as hitherto
developed, consists essentially in fastening the thoughts of the pupil on
the special character of the plant, in the place where he is likely to see
it; and therefore, in expressing the power of its race and order in the
wider world, rather by reference to mythological associations than to
botanical structure.

7. For instance, Plate VII. represents, of its real size, an ordinary
spring flower in our English mountain fields. It is an average
example,--not one of rare size under rare {180} conditions,--rather smaller
than the average, indeed, that I might get it well into my plate. It is one
of the flowers whose names I think good to change; but I look carefully
through the exi